262 The Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting. 
years—again a very long period)—there is, so to speak, very little, I 
believe, left to us of contemporaneous document. Still when such 
relics do come to light, our students of old handwriting, the paleo- 
graphers, assure us that documents of that period are in every way 
superior to those of the nineteenth century. The material was 
stouter, the vellum almost indestructible, the ink infinitely blacker ; 
the handwriting beautifully large, plain, and legible; last of all the 
deeds connected with property delightfully brief and portable. As 
we come down later, written records are more plentiful, but the con- 
tents are rather more difficult to get at, as the writing grows worse 
and worse. 
You are perhaps aware, that during the last few years great 
assistance has been given to students in this branch of archeol- 
ogical science by the improved preservation of our National Records, 
and the easier access that is allowed to them. It is not very credit- 
able to us that our National Records had been so long neglected as 
they were. In one of the earliest Reports of the Commission appointed 
to enquire into their condition, there is a description of the state 
they were found in. Some were in the Tower of London; some 
were in the Chapter House, Westminster: some in vaults in the 
Houses of Parliament,—so damp that they were perishing ; and the 
first step necessary was to employ rat-catchers and terriers to kill 
the vermin and clear the ground from enemies. In the Chapter 
House at Westminster on the upper floor the records filled old de- 
cayed wooden book-cases, and underneath, on the ground-floor, lived 
a washerwoman, whose fire might at any moment have burnt up 
Domesday Book itself, which actually lodged up-stairs. All this 
has now been rectified. A new Record Office has been built, 
everything transferred into it, and every facility is given for historical 
research. There has also been a Royal Commission appointed, under 
whose direction, of course with permission of owners, enquiry has 
been made into repositories of documents in private houses, or in the 
possession of Corporations and Colleges, for the purpose of ascertain- 
ing what they contain of public and national interest. Six folio 
volumes of their Reports have been printed, presenting valuable 
epitomes of what has been found. It by no means follows, however, 
